The Business: Mongoose Is Making A Move With Traveller

Check out this announcement by Mongoose.

Dive into RPG history and create Classic Traveller titles on our TAS programme at Drivethru!

There is an easy-to-use set of templates (inc. MS Word!), along with guidelines on what you are able to use and how.

You can find the template pack at: https://t.co/gdgiG8DlLA#ttrpg pic.twitter.com/0x4UymAFxt

— Mongoose Publishing (@MongoosePub) November 1, 2024

The link is here.

This is what that page says:

This package includes a range of templates with which you are licensed to use in content submitted for Classic Traveller to the Travellers' Aid Society programme and published under the Community Content Agreement for the TAS programme. You are not licensed to use these templates for any other purpose. All art owned by Mongoose Publishing.

You are allowed to use the Traveller setting as presented in the Classic Traveller edition books published by Games Designers Workshop as well as any Mongoose-published book using the Classic Traveller rules. This includes the names of all characters, species, and places and all gear, equipment and vessels; the capitalised names and original names of places, countries, creatures, geographic locations, historic events, items, ships, and organisations presented in those books.

No other editions of Traveller may be used at this time.

When publishing for Classic TAS, you must use the cover templates provided here. You are permitted to change the colour of the bands and the Traveller logo, and also the text labelled ‘Extended Title’ and ‘Main Title Here’.

You may not use Classic Traveller series titles (such as Book X, Supplement X, Adventure X, or Double Adventure X, etc), but may certainly create your own series for Classic Traveller!

Remember what I said about all these publishers having to make a choice? As Mongoose now owns all of Traveller, Mongoose has to make a choice on what to do about Traveller and it has made that choice. Those templates are free; you might as well snag and download them. The terms here are reasonable enough for practical use; there are Intellectual Property issues to consider, but note what is not in those terms: that you must sell them for profit.

You can give away the digital versions and sell print copies at-cost, so you can do this in a proper hobbyist mode if you want- and, quite frankly, you should.

Old-timers clearly see what the intent here is: to recreate the effect that the original Open Game License had for D&D3e. The idea was that by creating a vast network of people making useful stuff for that edition, adoption of that edition would increase exponentially via Network Effects. Dancey was right because that is what happened.

Mongoose has chosen. They chose the Clubhouse.